I have raised and trained ranch dogs most of my life. Puppies require consistent, ongoing training to learn to leave chickens alone, especially chicks. To leave a 6 month old pup alone with access to things that, to it, amount to fun toys to catch and play with, and expecting pup to have the maturity to ignore all that, is setting the pup up for epic failure. Our responsibility to care for and protect our livestock must extend to our dogs as well in the form of proper upbringing. If they are expected to be good ranch dogs they deserve the time and effort to train them before expecting them to act like fully trained, adult dogs.